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Automated surface damage detection with an embodied intelligence robotic platform
No full textRegular inspections of civil structures and infrastructure, performed by professional inspectors, are costly and demanding in terms of time and safety requirements. Additionally, the outcome of inspections can be subjective and inaccurate as they rely on the inspector’s expertise. To address these challenges, autonomous inspection systems offer a promising alternative. However, existing robotic inspection systems often lack adaptive positioning capabilities and integrated crack labelling, limiting detection accuracy and their contribution to long-term dataset improvement. This study introduces a fully autonomous framework that combines real-time crack detection with adaptive pose adjustment, automated recording and labelling of defects, and integration of RGB-D and LiDAR sensing for precise navigation. Damage detection is performed using YOLOv5, a widely used detection model, which analyzes the RGB image stream to detect cracks and generates labels for dataset creation. The robot autonomously adjusts its position based on confidence feedback from the detection algorithm, optimizing its vantage point for improved detection accuracy. Experiment inspections showed an average confidence gain of 18% (exceeding 20% for certain crack types), a reduction in size estimation error from 23.31% to 10.09%, and a decrease in the detection failure rate from 20% to 6.66%. While quantitative validation during field testing proved challenging due to dynamic environmental conditions, qualitative observations aligned with these trends, suggesting its potential to reduce manual intervention in inspections. Moreover, the system enables automated recording and labeling of detected cracks, contributing to the continuous improvement of machine learning models for structural health monitoring
Featureless stars: flux calibration for extremely large telescopes
No full textThe spectrophotometric flux calibration of recent spectroscopic surveys has reached a limiting systematic precision of approximately 1 − 3 per cent, and is often biased near the wavelengths associated with H I Balmer absorption. As we prepare for the next generation of imaging and spectroscopic surveys, and high-precision cosmology experiments, we must find a way to address this systematic. Towards this goal, we have identified a global network of 29 bright (G < 17.5) featureless white dwarf stars that have a spectral energy distribution consistent with an almost pure blackbody form over the entire optical and near-infrared wavelength range. Based on this sample, we have computed the systematic uncertainty and AB magnitude offsets associated with Gaia, SDSS, SMSS, Pan-STARRS, DES, and 2MASS, and we have also checked the consistency of our objects with both GALEX and WISE. The magnitude range of the featureless stars reported here are ideally suited to observations taken with the forthcoming generation of extremely large telescopes, as well as calibrating the survey data acquired by the Rubin, Euclid, and Roman observatories. Finally, all of the high-precision spectrophotometric standard stars reported here have been included in the latest release of the PYPEIT data reduction pipeline
Surviving the Black Death in Medieval England: Recovering from Illness at Warboys, Huntingdonshire
No full textThe Black Death swept through Europe between 1347 and 1353, killing perhaps half of the population. Yet, there is remarkably little information about those who contracted plague and recovered. Who fell ill? How long did their recovery take? Why did some survive, and others succumb to the disease? This article provides the first evidence of a group of twenty-two individuals on the manor of Warboys who missed their labour services due to illness over the summer of 1349. Most returned to work within three or four weeks, providing fresh insights into how long it took survivors to reintegrate into society
The social learning and development of intra- and inter-ethnic sharing norms in the Congo Basin
No full textCompared to other species, the extent of human cooperation is unparalleled. Such cooperation is coordinated between community members via social norms. Developmental research has demonstrated that very young children are sensitive to social norms, and that social norms are internalized by middle childhood. Most research on social norm acquisition has focused on norms that modulate intra-group cooperation. Yet around the world, multi-ethnic communities also cooperate, and this cooperation is often shaped by distinct inter-group social norms. In the present study, we investigated whether intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic social norm acquisition follows the same, or distinct, developmental trajectories. Specifically, we worked with BaYaka foragers and Bandongo fisher-farmers who inhabit multi-ethnic villages in the Republic of the Congo. In these villages, inter-ethnic cooperation is regulated by sharing norms. Based on our ethnographic knowledge of the participating communities, we predicted that children’s intra-ethnic sharing choices would match those of adults at an earlier age than their inter-ethnic sharing choices. To test this prediction, children (5–17 years) and adults (17 + years) participated in a modified Dictator Game to investigate the developmental trajectories of children’s intra- and inter-ethnic sharing choices. Contrary to our prediction, both intra- and inter-ethnic sharing norms were acquired in middle childhood. Interviews with adult participants suggested that intra- and inter-ethnic sharing norms are acquired from multiple sources, including parents and peers. Further, Bandongo adults primarily reported learning sharing norms via Instruction, whereas BaYaka adults primarily reported learning via Observation/Imitation. These cross-cultural differences may reflect variation in norm complexity. Together, these findings suggest that when social contexts regularly expose children to out-group collaboration, inter-ethnic norms are acquired at similar timelines to intra-ethnic ones, as part of children’s broader cooperative repertoire
From Isolation to Invasion: Disability and Loneliness as Catalysts for Cuckooing
No full textThis chapter provides an in-depth analysis of ‘cuckooing’, i.e., the exploitation of people's homes by Organised Crime Groups (OCGs) or by local perpetrators for criminal activities, in the North-East of England. The chapter discusses the strategic shift in organised crime that targets marginalised populations, which in this study primarily includes disabled people and intersections with loneliness, social isolation, and substance misuse. The narratives of practitioners with experience of county lines and cuckooing, alongside victims/survivors with lived experience, are presented. These narratives illustrate the profound social harm to victims/survivors whose homes have been commandeered under the guise of friendship or romantic interest, which escalates into abuse and exploitation. The analysis emphasises the intersections between disability, socio-economic factors, loneliness, and isolation, which render individuals particularly susceptible to cuckooing. In conclusion, there is a discussion of the broader societal implications, emphasising how social and economic inequalities, facilitated by austerity politics, contribute to the structural vulnerabilities that local perpetrators and OCGs exploit. By understanding the impacts and underlying causes of cuckooing, the chapter seeks to foster a more effective approach to highlight how disabled populations, particularly those who are socially isolated, are at particular risk of this form of exploitation within their communities
Recalibrating Entrepreneurship Research: Decolonizing and Embracing the Pluralism of Entrepreneurial Activity
Get PDFEntrepreneurship research has long focused on exceptional, high-growth, venture-funded firms while overlooking the everyday and modest ventures that make up most entrepreneurial activity. This Special Issue calls for a recalibration of the field by decolonizing its assumptions and embracing its pluralism. We distinguish between conventional entrepreneurship, shaped by ideals of technology-driven innovation and venture-capital funded growth, and unconventional entrepreneurship, which reflects diverse and contextually grounded practices. Focusing on everydayness, pluralism, and decolonization, we draw on Santos’ concept of abyssal line to invite a shift from studying outliers to studying the ordinary. Using the metaphor of moving from a microscope to a prism, we call for theories that capture the full spectrum of entrepreneurial life across contexts and cultures. We discuss how papers in this Special Issue exemplify this prism approach and, in doing so, cast new light on how entrepreneurship can be understood, studied, and imagined
Dreams, Narrative, and Liminal Cognition
No full textThis volume presents a novel interdisciplinary framework for investigating dreaming and liminal cognition by bringing together narrative theory, cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and the humanities. It asks how our enactive and waking experience of reality permeates into dream-worlds and vice versa, and what makes dreams immersive, world-like, and narrative in character. Drawing on the work of the research programme Threshold Worlds, the volume employs multiple methodologies—co-constructed exploratory models, experimental designs, phenomenological enquiry, and interpretation of large-scale dream-report datasets. The thematic core revolves around narrativity, permeability, immersivity and reportability of dream experience, as well as the relationships between dreams, mind-wandering, hallucination and fictional worlds. Contributors from cognitive science, psychiatry, narrative studies, theology, and the arts probe how dreaming reveals structures of the self, consciousness and imagination. Ultimately, the book argues that dreams are liminal cognitive states that challenge conventional boundaries between waking and sleeping, fiction and reality, self-model and world-model. By integrating methods across disciplines, the volume offers a transferable framework for understanding how narrative, cognition and immersion entwine in dream-worlds—and invites further empirical, theoretical and creative work at the thresholds of mind
China's model of technology leapfrog: A case study of electric vehicle policies and the development of green technology
Get PDFThe development of green technology is vital for driving economic growth and building low-carbon economies. In this era of technological advancement, the concept of “leapfrogging” has gained significance as emerging economies adopt advanced technologies, bypassing traditional stages of development. China, once a latecomer in the global automobile sector, strategically embraced electric vehicles (EVs) in the early 2000s and, after two decades of sustained policy and industrial efforts, has overtaken major competitors to become the world leader in the EV market. Yet there is limited systematic analysis of how China's policy design, political economy, and industrial strategies jointly enabled this leapfrogging. This study addresses this gap through a systematic policy review and a case study of China's EV sector. We analyze the drivers of government decision-making, the political economy of EV policy, the design of policy frameworks, and their impacts at both national and global levels. Our findings show how China combined early entry into a new technological field with coordinated state intervention, integrating EV technology development, manufacturing capacity, domestic demand, and industrial transformation. By tracing the evolution of EV policies over the past 20 years, the study develops a framework for understanding China's technological leapfrogging model and contributes to global debates on sustainable technology transitions by offering insights for other emerging economies to design pathways for green technology
Logarithmic Convexity, Continuous Dependence and Uniqueness in Elastodynamics with Higher Gradients
Get PDFWe investigate Hölder continuous dependence in theories of linear elastodynamics, assuming the elastic coefficients are not sign-definite. This is important with modern products such as auxetic materials where Poisson’s ratio may be negative. This study focusses on a class of linear elastic bodies where there are gradients of the strain and second gradients of the strain, and we also analyse a theory of elastodynamics with strain gradients where voids are also present in the body
A microfoundational network theory of rural entrepreneurial ecosystems: establishing the link between structure and behaviours
No full textThis paper examines the microfoundations of entrepreneurial ecosystems in rural settings through a network-theory lens. It has long been acknowledged that ecosystems promote knowledge spillovers and subsequent economic vitality, which often serves as an implicit basis for the formation of much industrial policy around the globe. Nevertheless, research into the relationship between ecosystem structures and actors has predominantly focused on densely populated centres. Furthermore, authors have only tangentially implied links between network structures and the behavioral features of ecosystems, such as the linking of overall cohesion, network density, information processing activities, cognitive attitudes, and perceptions. This has left a gap in our understanding of how individuals might navigate the inherent complexities of ecosystems and address the hurdles to obtaining resources. This is despite widely held assumptions that centralised (urban) versus peripheral (rural) actors have access to and benefit from these systems in different ways. This exploratory study contributes to this theoretical debate by merging micro-foundational and network theory of innovation theoretical lenses and provides an in-depth view of the ways (periphery) rural entrepreneurs in the Northeast region of the UK perceive and engage with local ecosystem support mechanisms for innovation. It highlights numerous conceptual variables that influence knowledge accumulation for these firms and suggests further analytical approaches to understand sub-regional-level behavioral and subculture variations
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